New DVD Releases: Black Swan, Tangled, Mad Men

Everybody’s favorite arthouse Blockbuster hits shelves this week as Natalie Portman’s oscar-winning role in Black Swan dances its way onto DVD. But that’s not all for the art film set. There are two movie so tiny, that you may not even know they exist. Or, you could just enjoy Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi in the kiddie hit Tangled. It’s all for the laser-aided spinning.

But it’s not just movies this week. Finally, we get the return of TV on DVD with HBO’s Treme and AMC’s Mad Men bringing the cable heat.

TV on DVD

“Mad Men”: Season 4

What do we call this type of show? The show that exists in a sort of singular limbo. The show that is “okay” to watch.

They’ve come in different types and genres. At one point it was “Arrested Development”, other times it was “The Wire” and it even went as mainstream as “The Office” for a time. It’s unclear how it happens, but every so often a show enters the zeitgeist as a series its viewers needn’t be ashamed to admit they follow.

Of course, these are a specific type of TV viewer. Those who don’t “own a TV set”. Those who “don’t have cable”. Those who TV is “only for watching movies”. Y’know those who make you want to “punch them in the throat”.

Still, despite all this, they manage to glom on to some show that you’ve been watching for years and instantly become obsessed thanks to BitTorrent and Netflix Marathons.

And what does this do? This arrogant fondness of your favorite TV show? It ruins it. It turns you into one of those snobs just for liking a good TV show. Sure, you’ve watched it since it was and actually follow all the good TV shows, but now, no matter what, you become a TV bandwagonner who didn’t start watching “Arrested Development” until it came out on DVD, even if you specifically remember watching the pilot after “The Simpsons”.

The great thing about these TV snobs? They haven’t seen the show yet because their TV is “only for Netflix” and that means you have an incredible amount of power: The spoiler. You can ruin everything for them and feel completely powerful knowing that you’re a real fan who doesn’t follow the cognoscente trends to the effect that you actually, y’know, watch the television show.